Global Warming Improving Mental Health?

Published February 7, 2014

Climate Change Weekly #117

Freelance writer Marlene Cimons, an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Maryland, wrote an editorial published by LiveScience and Yahoo News claiming increases in the frequency and severity of extreme weather events damage mental health. Cimons presented this assertion as a means to claiming global warming is harming mental health.

Assuming for the sake of argument that extreme weather events cause mental health-damaging stress, the facts show global warming is improving rather than harming mental health.

While spending the majority of her editorial asserting a link between extreme weather events and mental health, Cimons addressed global warming science in less than a full paragraph. Citing an anecdotal story of somebody claiming to have stress-related headaches and depression after Sandy battered the New Jersey coastline in November 2012, Cimons made an unsupported leap in logic that global warming caused the storm and therefore caused the headaches and depression.

Global warming realists know factual evidence shows extreme weather events have become less frequent and extreme as our planet gradually warms from the Little Ice Age conditions that prevailed through the end of the nineteenth century. Cimons’ editorial is a timely reminder that global warming activists should not go unchallenged when they falsely assert the relatively few extreme weather events that still occur must be caused by global warming.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Yahoo News and Forbes.com


IN THIS ISSUE

Gore: Reduce African women’s fertility to fight Global warming … Atmospheric CO2 helps trees recover from natural disasters … Migrating corals outpace warming, acidification … 98 percent of models agree real-world observations must be wrong … Alarmists rebrand cold air masses to sell global warming


GORE: REDUCE AFRICAN WOMEN’S FERTILITY TO FIGHT WARMING

Al Gore told the World Economic Forum “making fertility management ubiquitously available” is key to the future of civilization and efforts to limit global warming. Gore said such efforts to manage African women’s fertility were important in his desire to reduce the growth of human population. Gore complained there will be more Africans than either Chinese or Indians by mid-century and more Africans than Chinese and Indians combined by the end of the century.

MORE INFORMATION: Environment & Climate News


ATMOSPHERIC CO2 HELPS TREES RECOVER FROM NATURAL DISASTERS

Following massive aboveground destruction caused by both fires and hurricanes, atmospheric CO2 enrichment is helping scrub-oak ecosystems recover and once again flourish, according to a study in the peer-reviewed New Phytologist. Carbon dioxide enhancement stimulates root production and the acquisition of needed-but-scarce soil nutrients, the study reported. The findings refute assertions that carbon dioxide emissions make natural disasters worse.

MORE INFORMATION: NIPCC Report


MIGRATING CORALS OUTPACE WARMING, ACIDIFICATION

Migrating corals outpace warming ocean temperatures and acidification, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed Global Change Biology. “Contrary to expectations, the combined impact of ocean surface temperature rise and acidification leads to little, if any, degradation in future habitat suitability across much of the Atlantic and areas currently considered ‘marginal’ for tropical corals, such as the eastern Equatorial Pacific,” the study reports.

“These results are consistent with fossil evidence of range expansions during past warm periods,” the study explains.

MORE INFORMATION: NIPCC Report


98 PERCENT OF MODELS AGREE REAL-WORLD OBSERVATIONS MUST BE WRONG

Climatologist Roy Spencer updated the predictions of 90 climate models versus real-world temperature observations since 1979. All but two models predicted more warming than has been measured by satellite instruments, and all but four predicted more warming than is asserted by “adjusted” surface temperature measurements. “Whether humans are the cause of 100% of the observed warming or not, the conclusion is that global warming isn’t as bad as was predicted,” Spencer observes, putting the global warming debate in proper context.

MORE INFORMATION: Dr. Roy Spencer


ALARMISTS REBRAND COLD AIR MASSES TO SELL GLOBAL WARMING

Giving cold fronts exotic-sounding names may be a way to sensationalize cold temperatures and implicitly claim they never happened before, but global warming alarmists talking about polar vortexes merely undermines their long-standing climate claims, writes Larry Bell at Forbes.com. One thing we know about cold air masses and unusual weather is they are actually quite usual.

MORE INFORMATION: Forbes.com

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